Universal Credit

(asked on 19th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of compensating people who had their universal credit payments reduced due to the periodic assessment regulations.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 24th November 2020

There is no change to the period of assessment for Universal Credit. The Court of Appeal ruled that the way the Department calculated Universal Credit awards involving earnings in an assessment period was a correct application of the regulations, but called on it to consider the impact on the specific cases of those paid calendar monthly who are affected by ‘a non-banking day salary shift’.

The legislation we laid on 20th October, and which came into force on 16th November, revises those arrangements and provides a remedy that satisfies the Court of Appeal Judgment in the case of Johnson and Others. The Court of Appeal’s Judgment affects a small minority of claimants in very specific circumstances and the estimated cost is expected to be minimal.

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